Frankston – Victoria 2014

LIB 0.4%

Incumbent MP
Geoff Shaw (IND), since 2010.

Geography
South-eastern Melbourne. The electorate covers the suburbs of Frankston, Frankston North, Frankston South and Karingal, all within the City of Frankston.

Map of Frankston's 2010 and 2014 boundaries. 2010 boundaries marked as red lines, 2014 boundaries marked as white area. Click to enlarge.
Map of Frankston’s 2010 and 2014 boundaries. 2010 boundaries marked as red lines, 2014 boundaries marked as white area. Click to enlarge.

Redistribution
No changes were made to the southern or eastern boundaries. Frankston expanded north to cover parts of Frankston North previously contained in Carrum and Cranbourne. These changes reduced the Liberal margin from 2.1% to 0.4%.

History
A seat with the name “Frankston” has existed twice: from 1967 to 1985, and again since 1992.

The seat was first won in 1967 by Liberal minister Edward Meagher, who had served as Member for Mentone from 1955 to 1967. He served as a minister in the Liberal state government from 1961 until 1973. Meagher retired from Frankston in 1976.

Frankston was won in 1976 by Graeme Weideman. He served as a minister in the Liberal state government from 1981 to 1982, when he lost Frankston, and the Liberal government lost power.

Frankston was won by the ALP’s Jane Hill. In 1985, Frankston was abolished and replaced by Frankston North and Frankston South. Hill moved to the seat of Frankston North, and Weideman returned to Parliament as the Liberal Member for Frankston South.

In 1992, the two seats were redrawn again, being replaced by Frankston and Frankston East. Hill contested the marginal seat of Frankston East unsuccessfully, while Weideman won Frankston, which was a relatively safe Liberal seat.

Weideman retired in 1996, and was succeeded by Andrea McCall, also from the Liberal Party. McCall was re-elected in 1999.

Shortly after the 1999 Victorian state election, the Frankston East by-election was won by the ALP, bringing Labor into power. Prior to the 2002 election, Frankston East was abolished in a by-election, which brought strong Labor areas into the seat of Frankston.

At the 2002 election, McCall lost the redrawn Frankston to the ALP’s Alistair Harkness. Harkness was re-elected in 2006.

In 2010, Harkness was defeated by Liberal candidate Geoff Shaw.

Shaw has been a very controversial MP during his first term in Parliament. In 2012, he was accused of using his parliamentary vehicle as part of his business. In March 2013, Shaw resigned from the Liberal Party. The Liberal Party held a slim 45-43 majority in the Assembly, so Shaw’s resignation put him in the balance of power. The last eighteen months saw Shaw demand concessions from the government, and come into conflict with the Speaker at the time, which resulted in the Speaker resigning. He was charged with a number of offences in late 2013, which were later dropped.

In 2014, the Privileges Committee found that Shaw had breached the code of conduct, and he was suspended from the Legislative Assembly until early September, and forced to pay a fine.

Candidates

  1. Sean Armistead (Liberal)
  2. Anthony Wallace (Australian Christians)
  3. Joseph Toscano (Independent)
  4. Jeanette Swain (Greens)
  5. Alan Nicholls (People Power)
  6. Jamie Miller (Sex Party)
  7. Marianne Tootell (Independent)
  8. Paul Edbrooke (Labor)
  9. Reade Smith (Independent)
  10. Jerome Breen (Independent)
  11. Paul Mason (Family First)
  12. Geoff Shaw (Independent)
  13. Mervyn Vogt (Independent)
  14. Lin Tregenza (Rise Up Australia)

Assessment
Frankston is an incredibly marginal seat which would be hard for the Liberal Party to hold, even without the controversies and dramas surrounding Geoff Shaw. With Shaw running as an independent, it is hard to see how the Liberal Party will win, and the seat is a strong prospect for Labor.

2010 election result

Candidate Party Votes % Swing Redist
Geoff Shaw Liberal 14,899 46.79 +6.03 45.30
Alistair Harkness Labor 11,603 36.44 -7.03 37.90
Simon Tiller Greens 2,673 8.39 -1.59 8.58
Shem Bennett Sex Party 797 2.50 +2.5 2.26
Denise De Graaff Democratic Labor 753 2.36 +2.36 2.28
Quinn McCormack Independent 652 2.05 +2.05 1.85
Michael Pleiter Family First 467 1.47 -2.49 1.61
Other independents 0.23

2010 two-party-preferred result

Candidate Party Votes % Swing Redist
Geoff Shaw Liberal 16,581 52.07 +5.29 50.45
Alistair Harkness Labor 15,263 47.93 -5.29 49.55
Polling places in Frankston at the 2010 Victorian state election. Central in green, North in blue, South in orange. Click to enlarge.
Polling places in Frankston at the 2010 Victorian state election. Central in green, North in blue, South in orange. Click to enlarge.

Booth breakdown
Booths in Frankston have been divided into three parts: central, north and south.

The Liberal Party won a 54.9% majority in the south, which makes up almost half of the ordinary votes cast in Frankston. The ALP won a slim 50.02% majority in the centre of the electorate and 57% majority in the south of the electorate, while special votes were split almost evenly, with Labor winning 50.1%.

The Greens came third, with a vote ranging from 7.9% in the south to 9.4% in the north.

Voter group GRN % LIB 2PP % Total % of votes
South 7.92 54.85 11,464 32.44
Central 8.07 49.98 6,483 18.35
North 9.41 42.93 5,389 15.25
Other votes 9.12 49.88 12,001 33.96
Two-party-preferred votes in Frankston at the 2010 Victorian state election.
Two-party-preferred votes in Frankston at the 2010 Victorian state election.

13 COMMENTS

  2. Today’s Age is reporting that the ALP’s internal polling is showing it should pick this seat up.

  4. Reade Smith is a candidate for the unregistered Save the Planet Party. Toscano is a regular candidate at various elections. Vogt was apparenlty a Greens candidate in the 1990s. I didn’t find websites for Tootell or Breen.

  5. I wonder why Toscano is running here. If I remember correctly, he ran for the City of Melbourne a couple of years ago.

  7. Haha, touche.

    Hard to think of a metropolitan electorate that would be less supportive of an anarchist candidate though.

  9. Hearing anecdotal reports that Labor is feeling less confident about this now. If Shaw polls OK he may save the Libs on preferences.

  10. I don’t really see how Shaw polling highly is good for the Liberals. Presumably most of his voters would otherwise vote Liberal – while most of those voters will preference the Liberal Party, it seems more likely that Shaw will take Liberal votes and not return all of them as preferences, helping Labor.

  11. Shaw may be a conservative Liberal at heart Ben, but because of his notoriety I wouldn’t be surprised if he picked up some of that disenchanted anti-establishment ‘pox on both their houses’ vote that PUP soaked up at the last federal election.

  12. Not many votes around for PUP if the polls are to be believed – in any case the pox against politicians will weigh or heavily against the Liberals as they are in government this time

  13. Its a 0.4% seat on redistribution. I’m going to go with probability and say Labor can manage at least a 0.5% two party preffered swing.

Comments are closed.